Mr S Cooper v South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust: 6020361/2024 and 6026649/2025

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS

Case No 6020361/2024, 6026649/2025

Between

Mr S CooperClaimant

South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation TrustRespondent

Before

Employment Judge Livesey

Date 12 February 2026

JUDGMENT

The complaint of a failure to make reasonable adjustments is struck out.

REASONS

[1]In the case management order of 3 September 2025 Employment Judge Livesey directed the Claimant to write to the Respondent with discrete information about the adjustments that he alleged had been agreed to but not adhered to by whom and when. Instead the Claimant sent a lengthy narrative document.

[2]On 5 December 2025, the Claimant was given another opportunity to clarify his claim by Employment Judge Rayner, who ordered that he provide concise details of his complaint, in bullet point form, with a word limit of 750 words. He was ordered to do this by 13 January 2026. The Claimant did not respond to this order.

[3]By letter dated 21 January 2026 I gave the Claimant a strike out warning because he was not actively pursuing the claim and had not complied with the orders of Employment Judge Livesey and Employment Judge Rayner referred to above. The Claimant was given an opportunity to make representations or to request a hearing, as to why the failure to make reasonable adjustments complaint should not be struck out.

[4]The Claimant has failed to make representations in writing as to why this should not be done or to request a hearing. The complaint is therefore struck out.

[6]The other complaints made by the Claimant are unaffected. Approved by

[1]The Claimant worked for the Respondent as an Emergency Care Assistant and Newly Qualified Paramedic. The Claimant commenced the Early Conciliation process with ACAS on 19 September 2024. The Early Conciliation Certificate was issued on 31 October 2024. The claim form was presented on 30 November 2024.

[2]In the case management order of 3 September 2025 (sent to the parties on 11 September 2025) Employment Judge Livesey directed the Claimant to write to the Respondent with discrete information about the adjustments that he alleged had been agreed to but not adhered to by whom and when. Instead the Claimant sent a lengthy narrative document.

[3]On 5 December 2025, the Claimant was given another opportunity to clarify his claim by Employment Judge Rayner, who ordered that he provide concise details of his complaint, in bullet point form, with a word limit of 750 words. He was ordered to do this by 13 January 2026. The Claimant did not respond to this order.

[4]The Respondent wrote to the Tribunal, copying the Claimant making an application for an unless order in relation to this case management order.

[5]By letter dated 21 January 2026 I gave the Claimant a strike out warning because he was not actively pursuing the complaint of a failure to make reasonable adjustments and had not complied with the orders of Employment Judge Livesey and Employment Judge Rayner referred to above.

[6]The Claimant was given an opportunity to make representations or to request a hearing, as to why the failure to make reasonable adjustments complaint should not be struck out. He was ordered that, if he wished to make such a representation or request, he must do so by 4pm on 28 January 2026. He did not respond to the Tribunal.

[7]The Respondent wrote to the Tribunal on 10 February 2026, copying the Claimant, stating that the Respondent had still not complied with the relevant order.

[8]As at the date of the strike out judgment, on 12 February 2026, the Claimant had failed to respond to the strike out warning.

[9]By strike out judgment dated 12 February 2026, I therefore struck out the Claimant’s complaint of a failure to make reasonable adjustments. The other complaints made by the Claimant were unaffected. That strike out judgment was

[10]After the judgment had been issued, but before it had been sent to the parties, on 15 February 2026, the Claimant had written to the Tribunal in response to the strike out warning. This document appears to be the clarification document he had been ordered to provide by Employment Judge Livsey and Employment Judge Rayner.

[11]The Claimant made a reconsideration application on 6 March 2026 on the following grounds:a. the Claimant had submitted the document on 15 February 2026, which was before the strike out judgment had been sent to the parties;

b. that he misunderstood deadlines and had technical issues;

c. that he is disabled by reason of dyslexia which means it takes longer to assimilate written information;

d. the strike out judgment was not sent on the day it was approved (12 February 2026) which resulted in wasted work for the Claimant;

e. the case is voluminous and complex;

f. the Claimant is pursuing three claims in the Tribunal which means that he has a large workload;

g. the Claimant works full time;

h. the Claimant is a litigant in person;

i. the Respondent has caused the Claimant additional work and delay;

j. the Respondent is continuing to cause the Claimant distress and administrative burden;

k. strike out is reserved for cases where a fair hearing is no longer possible; an unless order should have been given instead. The law on reconsideration

[12]Rules 68 to 70 of the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024 make provision for the reconsideration of tribunal judgments as follows: “Principles 68.—(1) The Tribunal may, either on its own initiative (which may reflect a request from the Employment Appeal Tribunal) or on the application of a party, reconsider any judgment where it is necessary in the interests of justice to do so. (2) A judgment under reconsideration may be confirmed, varied or revoked. (3) If the judgment under reconsideration is revoked the Tribunal may take the decision again. In doing so, the Tribunal is not required to come to the same conclusion. Application for reconsideration 69. Except where it is made in the course of a hearing, an application for reconsideration must be made in writing setting out why reconsideration is necessary and must be sent to the Tribunal within 14 days of the later of—(a) the date on which the written record of the judgment sought to be reconsidered was sent to the parties, or

(b) the date that the written reasons were sent, if these were sent separately. Process for reconsideration 70.—(1) The Tribunal must consider any application made under rule 69 (application for reconsideration). (2) If the Tribunal considers that there is no reasonable prospect of the judgment being varied or revoked (including, unless there are special reasons, where substantially the same application has already been made and refused), the application must be refused and the Tribunal must inform the parties of the refusal. (3) If the application has not been refused under paragraph (2), the Tribunal must send a notice to the parties specifying the period by which any written representations in respect of the application must be received by the Tribunal, and seeking the views of the parties on whether the application can be determined without a hearing. The notice may also set out the Tribunal’s provisional views on the application..”

[13]Under these rules, the Tribunal therefore has discretion to reconsider a judgment if it considers it is in the interests of justice to do so.

[14]Under rule 70(2), the judge must dismiss the application if they consider that there is no reasonable prospect of the original decision being varied or revoked. It is a mandatory requirement for a judge to determine whether there are reasonable prospects of a judgment being varied or revoked before seeking the other party's response and the views of the parties as to whether the matter can be determined without a hearing, potentially giving any provisional view, and deciding how the reconsideration application will be determined: T.W. White & Sons Ltd v White,

UKEAT/0022/21

[15]In Outasight VB Ltd v Brown

UKEAT/0253/14

the EAT held (at [46-48]) that the Rule 70 ground for reconsidering judgments (the interests of justice) (which was the predecessor under the Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure 2013) did not represent a broadening of discretion from the provisions of Rule 34 contained in the replaced 2004 rules. HHJ Eady QC (as she then was) explained that the previous specified categories under the old rules were only examples of where it would be in the interests of justice to reconsider. The rules removed the unnecessary specified grounds, leaving only what was in truth always the fundamental consideration: the interests of justice. This means that decisions under the old rules remain pertinent under the new rules. I apply the same analysis in relation to the interpretation of the 2024 procedure rules, which refer to the same test: the interests of justice.

[16]The key point is that it must be in the interests of justice to reconsider a judgment. That means that there must be something about the case that makes it necessary to go back and reconsider, for example a new piece of evidence that could not have been produced at the original hearing or a mistake as to the law. It is not the purpose of the reconsideration provisions to give an unsuccessful party an opportunity to reargue his or her case. If there has been a hearing at which both parties have been in attendance, where all material evidence had been available for consideration, where both parties have had their opportunity to present their evidence and their arguments the interests of justice are that there should be finality in litigation. An unsuccessful litigant in such circumstances, without something more, is not permitted to simply reargue his or her case, to have ‘a second bite at the cherry’ (per Phillips J in Flint v Eastern Electricity Board

[1975] IRLR 277

[17]The expression ‘necessary in the interests of justice’ does not give rise to an unfettered discretion to reopen matters. The importance of finality was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in Ministry of Justice v Burton and anor

[2016] EWCA Civ 714

where Elias LJ said that: “the discretion to act in the interests of justice is not open-ended; it should be exercised in a principled way, and the earlier case law cannot be ignored. In particular, the courts have emphasised the importance of finality (Flint v Eastern Electricity Board

[1975] ICR 395

) which militates against the discretion being exercised too readily; and in Lindsay v Ironsides Ray and Vials

[1994] ICR 384

Mummery J held that the failure of a party's representative to draw attention to a particular argument will not generally justify granting a review.”

[18]Rule 70 gives the Tribunal a broad discretion to determine whether reconsideration of a decision is appropriate. Guidance for Tribunals on how to approach applications for reconsideration was given by Simler P in the case of Liddington v 2Gether NHS Foundation Trust

UKEAT/0002/16/DA

. Paragraphs 34 and 35 provide as follows: “34. […] a request for reconsideration is not an opportunity for a party to seek to re-litigate matters that have already been litigated, or to reargue matters in a different way or adopting points previously omitted. There is an underlying public policy principle in all judicial proceedings that there should be finality in litigation, and reconsideration applications are a limited exception to that rule. They are not a means by which to have a second bite at the cherry, nor are they intended to provide parties with the opportunity of a rehearing at which the same evidence and the same arguments can be rehearsed but with different emphasis or additional evidence that was previously available being tendered. Tribunals have a wide discretion whether or not to order reconsideration. 35. Where […] a matter has been fully ventilated and properly argued, and in the absence of any identifiable administrative error or event occurring after the hearing that requires a reconsideration in the interests of justice, any asserted error of law is to be corrected on appeal and not through the back door by way of a reconsideration application.” Assessment of the application under Rule 70(2)

[19]As set out in Liddington, a reconsideration is not an opportunity for a party to seek to re-litigate matters that have already been litigated, or to reargue matters in a different way or adopting points previously omitted. Any asserted error of law is to be corrected on appeal.

[20]The relevant time for considering what was before the Tribunal was the date of the judgment being given: 12 February 2026. Correspondence sent to the Tribunal after that date was naturally not taken into account. The Claimant had been ordered to respond to the strike out warning by 28 January 2026 if he wished to object to the strike out. The judgment was given significantly later than that date. The Claimant had therefore had ample time to respond but had not done so.

[21]Any reconsideration of this based on submissions made for the first time after judgment had already been given, would be a second bite of the cherry contrary to the principle in Liddington. The Claimant could and should have raised these matters in response to the strike out warning or in response to the previous orders but did not do so. The Claimant had numerous opportunities and warnings regarding compliance.

[22]There is no unfairness in not making an unless order: the Claimant was given a strike out warning which had the same effect, namely to put the Claimant on notice that continued non-compliance might result in strike out of that complaint.

[23]In relation to a fair hearing: at the time of the strike out judgment being approved on 12 February 2026, the Claimant’s case in relation to reasonable adjustments was unclear. The clarification he had been ordered to give was to enable the Respondent to understand the case it was required to defend. It is not possible to have a fair hearing if one party does not know the case against it. As such, this was already part of the consideration in relation to both the strike out warning and the strike out judgment.

[24]Having carefully considered the Claimant’s application and bearing in mind the importance of finality in litigation and the interests of both parties, for the reasons set out above I find that there is no reasonable prospect of the Judgment or any part of it being varied or revoked. Approved by